ELIZABETH MORTLAND loves Taihape and its people.
She's proud to say she was born and bred in Taihape, the daughter of farmers Colin and Joyce Mortland.
She went to New Plymouth Girls' High, then studied at Taihape College for her seventh-form year, before heading to Massey University to study for a bachelor of social work degree.
Leaving Taihape has been the pattern throughout her life.
"I keep returning," she said.
Ms Mortland is the projects and events manager of the Taihape Community Development Trust and started the job at the end of April last year.
Armed with her social work degree she spent time as a social worker at Waikato Hospital then over 18 years as the community education officer at Ruapehu Reap.
She also spent three years on Volunteer Service Abroad (VSA) as adviser to the development of Women's Affairs in Vanuatu.
At the end of that time in 2006 Ms Mortland had a two-week contract to write a report on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (Cedaw) in response to United Nations questions to the Vanuatu Cedaw community.
That report is on the UN website.
While in Vanuatu she helped write the national Women in Government policy, supported the Vanuatu Cedaw Committee. She initiated Sistas Toktok, a weekly women's page in the local daily newspaper.
She said: "This was phenomenal because it was the first time Ni-Vanuatu women had had the opportunity to speak out.
"Sistas Toktok was by women, about women, for women focusing on human rights."
This page is still being published which she said was a major achievement for Ni-Vanuatu women.
In 2007 she had a six-month contract as conference coordinator for the Human Development Programme at the Secretariat of the Pacific Community in Noumea to organise the 10th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women plus the Third Pacific Ministers' Meeting on Women.
She went back this year to help out with the 11th conference. She came home to her mum and dad for a rest.
The conversation returned to Taihape and that quintessential icon that had helped put Taihape on the boot-throwing map. The Taihape Community Development Trust is organising the event.
This year was the first time the annual gumboot-throwing competition was held under the international rules of weight and size of the boot.
Gumboot throwing began in the 80s as a "quirky innovative and positive response" to rural decline, she said.
Taihape had lost 80 families when the railways downsized and post offices around the country were closed.
The population fell from 3500 in the 60s to 1800 in 1985. Today the population sits at 1785.
In the 70s John Clarke of Fred Dagg fame joked about receiving his degree from the University of Taihape, the gumboot capital of the world.
Pam and David Sykes, Denis Roberston, Martin Little, Henry Fleury and others put their heads together, and in 1985 the main street was closed off and the first gumboots were thrown.
Christine Le Varis coined the term Gumboot Country and designed the logo in 1986 when the second event was held with degrees in "gumboot throwology" conferred by university professor Michael Abraham and dean Roger Blakiston.
The Rotary Club of Taihape helped start the ball rolling to join the ranks of boot throwing and Taihape will join Russia, Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Italy, Poland, Belgium, Germany and France in the world boot-throwing association.
And on March 12 next year, the inaugural New Zealand Boot Throwing Association will hold its first Gumboot Day.
Throwing a lifeline to Taihape's community
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